The Stonem Siblings and the Forest of Perpetual Failure
by StableyScuttleworth
Summary: Like Skins, yet suspiciously not unlike Hansel and Gretel. Join Tony and Effy in a drug-fueled adventure of teenage angst and dodgy caravans. There are plenty of normal, romantic Skins fan fictions out there, but you had to go and read this dismal affair didn't you?


Deep in the slums of Bristol there lived a snotty little boy and his shady little sister. The boy's name was Tony and the girl's name was Effy. They lived in a meagre terraced house among the wastelands and crumbling tower blocks with their father and mother. There was a great famine in the land and they could no longer provide even a Big Mac meal.

One evening Jim Stonem said to his wife "For fuck sake, Anthia. What are we going to do?"

"I don't know, Jim... go to sleep."

"How are we gonna feed the kids if we can't even afford the McDonalds saver menu?"

Jim sat up in bed, "You know what, Anthia?" he said, "Tomorrow we take them out to Gobblers end, tell them that they're going to one of their little acid raves or whatever they do these days, make them a fire, bung them some chips and leave them there."

"Jim no!" Anthia shouted, "We can't do that, how can we abandon Tony and Eff like that?"

"Well all four of us will starve to death if we keep on this way." Eventually Anthia could do little more than to agree with Jim.

Little did they know that Tony and Effy were awake, listening in on everything they were saying. "Tony.. what are we gonna do? They can't just abandon us like that."

Tony replied in his blaze' manner, "It's gonna be cool Effy, trust me. I got this planned." He seemed to calm Effy's panic with his confident reassurance. "Just go to bed, I got this."

The next afternoon, Jim burst into the living room. "Right you pair of wasters, me and Anthia need some alone time, so we're taking you up to Gobbler's End, I think something's going on there. Call your mates see if they wanna come down. You lot could use the tranquillity.

"Ermm... okay, dad. If you two are gonna get it on, then I don't wanna be in the house anyway to be honest."

Effy walked out into the hallway and as she did, the smell of fish and chips wafted into the room, but luckily Jim didn't pick up on it. "Be cool, Eff." Tony said.

In the car Effy had been leaning out of the window the whole time, the wind blowing her hair in all directions like a huge sheet. Every few minutes she would drop some chips at the side of the road, making sure they landed in a precise position. When Jim asked her why she was hanging out the window, she just ignored him and continued scattering those chips.

When they arrived in a bleak hollow of woodland, the Stonems all set about gathering twigs to build a fire and once the fire was sorted, Jim told Tony and Effy to lie down next to the fire whilst he and Anthia fetch more firewood.

"Hey Tony" Said Effy, softly. She held out her hand to reveal two small pills. Tony immediately took one and Effy swallowed the other. For a while the Stonem siblings sat motionless either side of the fire, watching the pastel of the late afternoon sky stretch tiresomely on above the bare branches of the trees that towered above them and closed in like a giant kaleidoscope which grew steadily further away as they both lapsed into their surroundings.

Effy picked up some fallen leaves and held them above her eyes , laughing manically, before releasing her grip and watching them fall like feathers onto her face. She enjoyed the soft touch of each leaf gently landing on her and falling out of sight, onto the ground. Next thing they knew they were running around the fire laughing at their own elation.

Tony ran around, encircling the fire with increasing speed, but his eyes were fixated on the flames. His orbit grew ever further away from the fire until he was at the edge of the clearing. Spinning out of control, Tony began a conversation with his friend Sid, his friend who for so long he had been a dick to, his best mate since childhood who he had never truly loved until this moment. He knew now that his friend was right, that he had once said to him that "He could never think of anything worse than being you." But that was so far away, Sidney was a man how and had been through so much with Tony.

Tony knew now that he loved everything, he loved the tree branches and the cold breeze, he loved his sister and the warmth of the fire which they shared. The fact that they were here in this moment spinning at a million miles an hour.

With the sky and the ground inverting and spinning, Tony felt himself fall into a black hole, only to be caught in Effy's arms. She said some words, but he did not hear. Instead everything went to black and the last thing they felt were cold, wet leaves on the backs of their necks and the smell of wood smoke.

When they finally woke, it was pitch black. the fire was dead and the cold night air hit them both in the face the second their eyes opened. Tony stood up disoriented and without sight of Effy, until he saw her pacing a few meters away between some trees. She looked like she was crying.

"Tony... Tony, what are we gonna do?" She seemed to be in a state of extreme panic. Bordering on a panic attack, she squatted down in a dry patch of land and buried her head in her hands.

Tony placed a hand on her shoulder and told her that he has everything sorted like he said. Effy suddenly remembered the chips she had dropped from the car window and gave a brief sigh of relief.

"Yeah, just follow the chips. Simple." Tony walked into the trees and asked where Effy had dropped the last few chips. She told him that they should be around there somewhere.

They spent about half an hour searching for the chips, which Effy recalled hiding in places such as holes in tree trunks and on toadstools, but she nor Tony could find any such places. In fact if it wasn't for the burnt out fire they wouldn't even know if they were in the same place or not.

In the end Effy concluded that the birds obviously ate the chips. She gave Tony an evil glare and coldly told him that his ego will get him killed one day, seeing as though it nearly did once.

Tony opened his mouth in response, but instead placed his hand on a tree trunk and lowered his head.

"Cretin..." Effy said, shooting him a glare which he didn't see.

"Are you gonna stand there all day, Tony or are we going to find a way out of here?"

They walked through the night and into the following evening, only eating a few blackberries which they had found on bushes. When their legs could no longer carry them, they fell beneath a tree and fell asleep.

They woke up to blackness once again. First they made out the ghostly white spectors of trees surrounding them, then a dark shape through the trees with something glistening and white, covered in green slime and with a low fence around it made of tarpaulin.

"Eff, look. There has to be somebody in there. Pretty sure he'll give us some food if we ask extra nicely." Tony boldly walked up to the grimy trailer door and hammered on the plastic window. "Hey buddy, you awake? He peered in the window. "Hey mate, you got any food? You can spare us some food, yeah?"

"Tactful." Said Effy.

"Sis, these things take boldness. Confidence. Assertiveness. You see, Effy. that's how you get things done."

A voice floated from inside the static caravan "Who's there?" The door booted open and a tall, unshaven man with long greasy hair and a large duffle coat stood at the door with a can in his hand.

Effy instantly recognised the man as Cook's dad, the man that she had last seen at Sharpness harbour after she and Cook had gone on a wild bender together. Those were dark times for Effy. Not a period in her life that she wanted to re-live. Her last memories of the man involved his greasy hand on her knee and Cook pushing him into the harbour, all cloaked in a distant haze of drugs and alcohol.

Tony chimed in, raising one eyebrow "Hello there good sir, you couldn't see your way fit to sparing us any food could you?"

"How about you fuck off." The man was clearly drunk.

"Tony, I want to leave, let's just go."

"Nah" The man said, "How about you kids hang about, I think I can sort you out."

After some persuasion Effy agreed, with trepidation, to enter the caravan. Inside the place was a sea of fag butts and empty beer cans. Cook's dad pointed them to a soggy, cold bag of chips which they ate without hesitation.

"So lovely, we meet again. Haha, I knew you'd get sick of the little fuckwipe sooner or later." He lit a fag and cleared a space in the sea of rubbish, kneeling in front of Effy. "Fucking hell. The soft prick's in prison you know. I knew you'd destroy the little cunt. Like I said, you destroy everything you touch. You're poison... fuckin' hell" He laughed, filling the confined space with smoke as he did.

They awkwardly chatted for a few hours, smoking weed before falling to sleep on the comfy bed which Mr. Cook usually slept on.

The following morning they woke up stiff and sober to the rancid interior of the caravan. It only took them a matter of moments to realize that they were both lashed to the caravan with bungee cord, the cord being attached to the outer wall of the caravan through two open windows. the cord dug tightly into their wrists, ankles and necks.

"What the fuck is this?" Tony said, "If you're into kinky shit mate you only need to say."

"Shut the fuck up Tony," Effy shouted.

"Getting excited eh?" The man called from outside.

"Would a pair of pliers to your balls excite you?... mate." Effy said.

The guy came running in and grabbed Effy by the throat and looked them both in the eye. In his hands was a lit blowtorch. "I fuck your sister, or I burn both your pretty fucking faces off, starting with her? Choice is yours" Tony was sweating as the heat of the torch almost singed his hair. "I'll do it, I don't give a fuck."

Cook' father did nothing except throw the remaining chips at them for that entire day until he fell asleep drunk at nightfall.

In her slow descent into sleep, Effy lifted the lace curtain and in front of her face was a vacant pair of eye sockets in a baseball cap staring back at her.

Outside the van was a darkened pack of hooded youths wearing all manner of headgear, some with what appeared to be cardboard boxes with the flaps turned down to form soggy caps which covered their faces. A few hoodies dressed in dazzling colours rushed at the caravan and rocked the whole place, booting everybody awake.

With the caravan about to tip on its side, Effy and Tony felt a jolt as the bungee cord binding them to the wall was severed from the outside just as Cook's dad spun into action with a baseball bat.

As Effy climbed out of the window facing the sky, she heard a loud chant from the crowd now amassed around the lone caravan, "We are the Diggers! We are the Diggers!," They kept shouting. Effy remembered an old friend of Tony's, Chris, mention something about the 'Digger' people. They were miners or gypsies who looked for old houses and started random parties and raves. Something like that. Anyway, she thought it was just one of his crazy stoner stories.

As Tony joined her on the roof, Effy heard the squeek of wheels in the distance. Two sports gear-clad hoodies bolted out of the darkness, pushing grandfather clocks in wheelbarrows, which were linked to their necks by dull chains. Flanking them were more guys, this time in neon colours which made them look as if they were at a warehouse rave, this time with smaller clocks. Cuckoo clocks, kitchen clocks, mantle clocks and alarm clocks. The only people without clocks were two girls in filthy, stained pink tracksuits, each blasting two different drum and bass tracks from rusty gramophone speakers which they pushed along in wheelbarrows.

Before they knew it, and before Tony and Effy had managed to jump down from the roof, the mob had managed to attach several mopeds to the caravan and tried to drag them through the mud, but failed and fell down in a heap of hoodies, cardboard and clocks. As a barrage of bottles (and one guy's bike) pelted the inside of the caravan and Cook's dad, Tony and Effy watched from the safety of the roof as a battered Peugeot emerged from the night and strained through the mud, splashing it everywhere as it inched through the clearing.

The Diggers quickly gave up in their attempt to steal the caravan and rushed to help the Stonems down from the roof. Effy and Tony stood at the gaping entrance of the caravan and saw Mr. Cook slouched in a corner, a large piece of glass stuck into his arm and blood spattered the white linen bed sheets beneath him.

"Prick." Effy said, seductively licking her middle finger then saluting the man with it.

"Let's rob the perv, It's what Chris would have wanted." said Tony "I'm telling you, Eff. He sent the Digger people. Chris watching over us. Thanks man!"

Effy rolled her eyes in mockery of her brother. "How does this stuff even happen?"

Tony was climbing into the caravan, filling his pockets with whatever he could. A bag of pills, a 20's of weed and several copies of 'Asian fanny Fun'. Effy wanted to have it large and party with the Diggers, but tony suggested that they rest for a while and come to terms with their ordeal.

A matter of hours later, Effy woke up. It was a soft spring morning and she felt a sprinkling of dew on the ground. Wiping the damp off her top, Effy drew a breath of crisp air and woke up her brother.

"Oh man, what was that?"

"Sorry, we gotta get going."

"Going..where?" he said, "And no, I mean last night, Jesus."

"No idea..."

Laden with a supply of drugs and up £80, they decided not to find out what had _really_ happened the night before and agreed to follow the dirt track and find their way home, maybe crash at a friend's house.

Effy walked far ahead of Tony, "Come on, wanker. Let's go home."

"Wait up Eff... what you got there?"

She turned and flashed a smile, "Assorted pills. Only the finest."

Tony smiled. "Love you, Effy."

"Everybody loves me."

You're not who you think you are

you're the hundred thousand lives

aching everty moment wasted not alive

you're the hundred thousand lives

wasting in the crap towns

A hundred thousand sprawls of

at the centre its a joke waiting for the punchline

until its safe

until its fafe

A hundred thousand childhoods

A hundred thousand lives

But none alive

Just waiting for this to happen


End file.
